


Burnt Offerings

by friar



Category: Tales of Legendia
Genre: Dealing With Loss, Gen, made up holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-31 01:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13964598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friar/pseuds/friar
Summary: They said their goodbyes. There was nothing more to say.Then together they turned and walked back to the land of the living.





	Burnt Offerings

**Author's Note:**

> my half of a fic trade with nelfes @ tumblr  
> the holiday is loosely inspired by Día de los Muertos

 

  1. ¾ cup White Sugar
  2. ¾ cup Brown Sugar
  3. 1 cup Butter
  4. 1 tsp Vanilla



Senel shook the fine granules of sugar off his hands and into the sink. Then he measured out the butter, exact as he could, leveling the cup with the back of a table knife. But before he could continue… was he supposed to stir both sugars together before this step? He tried to turn the page back and ended up smearing a healthy glob of yellow goo across the paper. Sighing, he cleaned his hands and the book on a kitchen towel. He squinted down at the instructions. They were purposefully vague. And what was a tsp again? The big or little spoon?

When he went to check on this matter, he found that there were  _ five  _ big spoons and  _ five _ little spoons.

It could be any one of them.

He ended up choosing the big spoon. Vanilla smelled so nice, like the stirring of the midnight breeze through a field of flowers. What harm could something like that do? He dumped the butter in, made sure to scrape every last bit out of the cup. Then he set to work beating the hell out of the mixture with a whisk. Bad idea! The whisk was now full of butter-sugar-vanilla. 

As he scraped it all out with his fingers, a thought struck him: it couldn’t get any harder than this, right?

  1. 1 egg



And then he broke the egg shell into the bowl and had the scrap the entire mess.

  1. 1 tsp baking soda
  2. ½ tsp salt



By the time he’d managed to repeat the process it was midday and he was  _ hungry _ , and he decided to break for lunch.

On his way back from grabbing a meal at the Inn, he took a detour to drop in and check on someone else's progress. Will was thankfully home and in the kitchen himself. He was puffing, and his eyebrows were knit together, and his glasses were foggy – no, they were covered with a thin layer of flour. 

Senel greeted him with an equal expression. “You too, huh?” 

Thinking back, Will had been the first person to introduce him to the holiday. 

Or rather, Harriet had burst into the room while they were talking and shoved a plate in both of their hands.

“It’s a new recipe for Memorial Day!” And, after they’d both taken as small a bite as possible and gagged, she’d explained, “Mom loved fish, so I thought I could take the traditional breakfast Danish and combine it with tuna and peas.”

It took a great strength for Senel to nod. “Mmhmm.”

“She would have loved it,” said Will, an obvious cop-out to avoid giving his own opinion.

After Harriet had berated him for not swallowing his bite and subsequently stormed back to the kitchen, Senel had spat his portion out and turned to Will. “What’s Memorial Day all about? Some local holiday?”

Will seemed to sway on the spot, but recovered enough to sit down. He massaged his temples. “It’s been this way all week… Yes, it’s a tradition from my homeland. It just so happens that many in Werites Beacon share it.”

From the other room Harriet could be heard humming, and then came a sizzling, and a toxic smell. Senel sank into his own seat. “So it’s a… cooking holiday?”

“Not exactly… it’s a day of remembrance for loved ones who have passed. Baked goods are left on the graves of the departed, in order to offer to them some comfort of the lives they’ve left behind.”

At the time Senel had felt some slight stirring in his gut, either of nausea or (more likely) guilt. It was almost as if, sitting there in Will's home months ago, he had known that this would happen.

Senel couldn't bake. There wasn't much more to it.

Now, he stared at Will's perfectly portioned globs of dough and sighed. His friend didn't seem to notice, just cut a slit across the tops of each and started to layer on melted butter. Then, out of nowhere, "It's better to offer something than nothing."

"Excuse me?" Then, with too much shame, "I don't know. Stella was a great cook, and I almost feel like... it's partly letting her down."

Will laughed softly. In the noise was almost an agreement, and Senel thought of Harriet at once, toiling away on her offerings regardless of the fact that they would, inevitably, turn out as monstrosities. He looked around at the thought. "So where is she?"

"Already done. She woke up first thing this morning and... I've just got the kitchen cleaned and thought I'd pitch in some of my own. Would you mind opening the oven?" Once the tray of buns were in and baking, Will sat down at the counter and wiped his brow. "There, that's done." He removed his glasses and started wiping off the flour. "You know, it's a lot more than 'the thought that counts'. This holiday is a very personal expression. In this way, Harriet is more successful in her baking than I'll ever be..."

Senel sat beside him and together they sighed. Finally Will shook his head. "I miss her. But nothing I'm feeling comes close to what  _ she _ feels."

"Yeah," said Senel. "I know what you mean."

\---

It was two hours past midday when he finally mustered up the willpower to return home - and, more importantly, to his batter. It had sat too long. He started over. This time he tried cracking the eggs in a separate bowl, and felt very smart for doing so.

A knock on the door made him jump, and his thumb went right through the eggshell. "Just come in!"

His heart sank when he saw Shirley enter, because there in her arms were two baskets of pastries. He glared at them. Shirley gave a weak smile. "Too many?"

Realizing his scowl, he tried to return the smile, and it was just as half-hearted as hers. "No, no. It's just... you're done so early. I thought we'd be going together."

Shirley dropped the baskets onto the counter. "Oh, these are for Fenimore. I thought it might be fun if we..." Then she caught sight of the mess and her face grew pale. "Uhm. If we worked together."

At the look on his face, she started rolling up her sleeves.

\---

Cooking with Shirley had always been an exercise in patience. Where he was the type to charge in, Shirley would rein him back, tell him he needed to slow down the mixing or else get covered in flour. There were so many details to get even a basic chocolate chip cookie right. And, naturally, Shirley was dedicated to each.

He loved that about her, really. It was like an artifact, a glimpse of Stella's nature shining through her sister. Thinking about it now made him feel guilty, but the notion wouldn't leave him, and he'd  come to embrace their subtle similarities. 

He let her direct him in portioning out every ingredient. It turned out much easier when someone was there, with all the secrets of how to properly crack an egg. Within twenty minutes they had a baking sheet filled with mounds of dough and safely stashed away to bake in the oven.

Senel wiped his forehead. Baking was harder than the cookbooks made it look.

Shirley was already untying the strings of her apron, and afterwards she helped him with his. He'd felt silly wearing the thing but now, seeing it covered with dust and egg goo, he was glad for her intervention. 

Then he noticed she was already picking up her baskets. "Well, I'd better get these to Thyra."

"Thyra?" Senel backtracked quickly. "You're going with her? I thought..."

She giggled. "Yeah, I could have sworn she'd say no... but when I asked her she seemed almost relieved." A shadow crossed her face and she turned away. "It's not easy being alone, I guess."

He thought of how it would feel, being a matched pair all your life. Being one of a set, a puzzle piece with a perfect fit, and then one day being so incomplete that you felt the presence of your loss with every step.

It wouldn't be fair to ask Shirley to stay, then.

As if reading his mind, Shirley came over and patted his hand. "I'll be back in time to place the offerings for Stella. Is that... okay?"

More than ever, he wished to sit down beside her, talk about... anything, really. Hear her voice. Wrap himself in familiarity - another time, another place when they were all together.

All he could do was smile and reassure her. She beamed and bustled out the door, and that was that. Twenty minutes and the cookies would be done. He decided to lay down and rest his eyes for a bit. Quiet the thoughts of Stella's cool, calm voice.

\---

It didn't work. Instead, he dreamt he lay on the ocean's waves. They bore him up towards the never ending blue of sky, then back down, so close to the depths of the earth that he could feel its power pulling him, smothering him. Then up, then down. He ebbed and flowed. 

There was no place in his mind for wondering why he was here. He just was. There wasn't anything beyond the ocean.

Then, up in the sky, he saw a bird flying. He reached up, and it began to sing in Stella's tenor, began to drip from the heat of the sun. Before his eyes, it burnt up, in a puff of flames and then into nothing. 

He began to thrash and buffet himself against the power of the water. He wanted up there! He wanted to be where she had been, to exist in that plane of gentle nothingness.

The water held him back. But he wanted to burn.

Then he woke. He'd trashed himself onto the floor. Rubbing his head, he sighed, and was immediately assaulted by a terrible smell. It was sharp and edged with memories of fire. He waved a hand in the air and turned over on the floor, trying to return to the fragile surface of that dream ocean, to a time when he didn't feel the need to do anything more than stop existing.

The smell was thick and heavy, and it pushed down his nose until he couldn't ignore it. As he threw his blanket off, he stopped dead with realization. 

The cookies!

He flew down the stairs (only stumbled twice) and towards the kitchen. Black smoke was trailing from the oven, thick and warm like spun yarn. He coughed his way to save them, threw the doors open, only to reel back. 

They were burnt to a crisp - he couldn't see them, but he could tell.

For about the twentieth time that day all he could do was take a moment to sigh. Outside his window were streaks of sunset, striping up the cobblestone streets of Werites Beacon. He had no time left to make another batch. 

Donning a pair of mitts, he slid the baking sheet out and let it clatter onto the counter. Two dozen discs of charcoal. They were supposed to be perfect - now they were ruined beyond repair. 

He began scraping them off the sheet (not an easy task, because they were stuck - of course they were stuck). Before he could finish and ... do what (hide the evidence? Bury them in the backyard?) Shirley poked her head through the doorway. He didn't turn around. She coughed. "Senel...?"

He kept quiet as she came to stand beside him. He kept stoic as she regarded the mess. Then she put her arms around his shoulders and he felt a bit weepy. "I can't believe I let this happen."

They stood in silence, Shirley rubbing a small circle on his back. Senel felt a comfort in her embrace that reminded him of that ocean. Maybe he wanted to get angry and give up on the whole mess. He wanted to feel something burning and passionate about his failure. But Shirley was cooling down that heat in measure, bit by bit, and he felt the frustration recede. 

Wasn't it always like that?

"You know... this reminds me of when Stella first taught me to bake a cake." Shirley's voice was soft and he let himself close his eyes. "She had always been so prim and proper. But when we were baking... she got covered in flour and I'd laughed at her... So she grabbed the bag and flung some flour at me. I thought she was angry, but then I saw she was laughing, too. We made such a mess that we were reprimanded and made to clean the entire kitchen."

Senel thought about it, his elegant Stella, her impeccable smile... covered with flour... and it made him smile, and it made him finally let a couple tears surface. "I used to think she was perfect."

Shirley laid her head upon his shoulder. "Me too."

\---

It took a little convincing and a lot of scraping, but eventually Senel stood before Stella's grave. A basket of burnt crisps hung from his hands. Shirley stood beside him. Together they placed their offerings.

All around them, other offerings were being made. Some had brought blankets and laid them out across the graveyard. They sat huddled together, drinking milk or wine or coffee, sharing their cookies and breads and pastries with their loved ones. The scent of sugar hung on the air. Everyone was beaming, laughing. The veil between life and death suddenly seemed a lot more fragile.

He cleared his throat. "Well... they aren't perfect, but, I hope you can see how much work I put into them..."

Shirley giggled. "He filled his whole kitchen with smoke."

Senel couldn't help but smile. "And this was my best attempt, too!"

"But we'll do better next year. I promise."

After they were done laughing, the weight of Stella's silence settled in. Senel hunched his shoulders. Shirley reached forward and ran her hand along the stone. 

They said their goodbyes. There was nothing more to say. Then together they turned and walked back to the land of the living.


End file.
